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Session 5.1 - Ssera's Journey
I'm Never Drinking Again As Ssera comes to, she finds herself in a caged wagon with three other inhabitants: A bear in a top hat and bow tie, a tanned, emaciated gnome, and a sickly dryad. The bear frightens her, because she has a traumatic history with bears. The bear introduces her to the others and she finds out from the dryad that groves in the Elfwild have been disconnecting from each other for unknown reasons. Furthermore, she discovers that the gnome is Ehra’s former lover and that he left her for the dryad. It is implied that the bear did something pretty intense to incur the wrath of the Rovers. It is at this point that Ssera learns that she was taken not only for her part in the killing of the Rovers’ pet wyvern, but also for striking Kaven during the party in which they were drugged, charmed, and robbed. It is also at this point that Ssera discovers that all of the prisoners will be taken to Rover’s Den, a meeting of caravans, and sold as slaves and that they are cursed. The bear, Fig, has a strange affectation of speech in which he has to start every sentence with “Seems as though,” the gnome, Magwead, can not express any kind of emotion in his speech, and the dryad, Shalei, is struck with a different plague every day. Magwead posits that Ssera is already cursed, noting that they typically take some time to manifest. Message in a Flower Bottle Ssera apologizes for her overreaction to being locked in a cage with the thing she fears most and formulates a plan to communicate this information to El and whoever else is alive and coming. She tells everyone to freak out like something stinks when she signals them, and tells the bear to bite her on the shoulder. Fig obliges, and she extracts a large splinter from the wound, sharpens it on the corner of her manacle, and then pulls out a catkin of her flowers. She strips a section of the flowers and carves a brief message into the stem, then folds the remaining flowers over it. When everyone freaks out about the smell, she chides them for their overreaction to a perfectly natural biological process and agrees to throw it out of the cart. The guards all buy the ruse. Tipping the Scales After further discussion, they decide that their odds of rescue decrease dramatically if they arrive at Rover’s Den, Ssera comes up with another plan to stall their progress. She fakes a fight with the massive bear, timed so that when the cart hits a large bump, Fig and Ssera will slam into the side of the cart, tipping it over and hopefully breaking the wheels. After exchanging irate words, the bear and Ssera jump into the side of the cart, successfully breaking the wheels and delaying progress. Francisco enters the cage to break up the fight. After calming everyone, he mutters something about his love and Ssera remembers that Voila stopped dancing with her to dance with a man who… Yes, that is him. She talks to Francisco about Voila and he confesses his love for her to Ssera. Of Love and Larceny Ssera sees another opportunity to disrupt the Rovers, and attempts to convince Francisco to leave the Rovers with the slaves and some of their stolen stuff as an offering of goodwill to El and V, who she hoped were in pursuit. Ssera makes a convincing argument and this nearly works, but at the last available second, Francisco realizes that Ssera is using her Fey charm on him and orders the slaves bound and gagged and blindfolded. Ssera is livid and starts ridiculing Francisco for his lack of commitment to peace and to his love of Voila; and she ends by threatening the group with the wrath of the Birch Bitches. As the gag comes down over her mouth, she sees one last opportunity to sow disharmony and begs one last question and then she won’t fight anymore. They oblige her. She motions for the lead guard to lean in and asks “''Why did Francisco leave them the dagger''?''” They do not seem particularly impressed, thinking that Elophia still has the dagger. She points out that someone left them the dagger, which they counter is her right. Ssera questions whether it’s her right to get them all killed, and the gag comes down. All that’s left is to wait. Wait and hope.